The summary of the problem is basically laggy / insufferably slow performance issues with LR CC running on a system as follows:

i7 4790k @ 4Ghz

32Gb RAM

SSD Catalog

2x HGST 5Tb RAID 1 image host drives

nVidia 970 GTX

2560 x 1440 display, LR in Single Display mode only

Windows 10 Pro 64bit

Issues such as laggy brushes, 6-10 second wait times when navigating between images, laggy UI interactions, colour shifting and screen blackout behaviours. Screen updates when moving sliders in the develop module can take several seconds to display, and don't even think about using the program in any capacity if an export or import is underway. Multitasking is so passé ;)

I have been engaged with Adobe on this issue for several months, during which time I have kept my display drivers and lightroom up to date.

Performance *HAS* improved slightly since 6.10 but is still not at a point where it is comfortable to smoothly work. Every operation has a lag / UI update that just makes the whole experience jarring. The memory leak that would send LR to its knees was indeed resolved with 6.10, so performance no longer degrades as rapidly over time as it used to, however baseline performance is still not what I'd expect and is certainly not comfortable to work with. Editing in Lightroom is a headache to be dreaded right now, so much so that I've been putting off jobs that I really shouldn't be.

This initial video opened up the dialog with Adobe, and was recorded on 6.8. This is the best performance I ever see from LR as it was freshly loaded up and hadn't been subject to the memory leak in versions < 6.10 . I'm currently regenerating the 1:1 previews on the images in the video to see if the cache was corrupted or something. It's taken 2 hours so far, and it's at 58%. (700 images). In another 2 hours I will be able to say.

(Though I'm not sure 4 hours rendering time is in any way acceptable for 700 images. I'm fairly confident I can render video quicker... :D )

I've produced another video that shows the GPU accel colour shift and screen blackout. This time LR had been open for a few hours, so it's the absolute worst case performance. Running on 6.8 / 6.9 as 6.10 had not yet been released

Another video, this time with some diagnostic information onscreen. It's a long video as I was discussing with a reddit group ideas on how to improve performance. Skip through and you'll find CPU readouts, HDD benchmarks and some other stuff. This was recorded during a 1:1 preview generation session, which took 3 hours for 1000 images.

I've had lightroom open long enough to import 286 images and generate 1:1 previews for them. Performance is still just as bad as in the recorded videos. I'll leave it open and idling overnight to see if it leaks any memory, but honestly the concept of editing even this tiny set of ~300 images is enough to give me a headache.

Face tagging, geotagging, and all other extraneous gubbins turned off from day 1. 1:1 and Smart previews. 90% CPU over 4 cores, but no account given, seemingly, to people trying to use LR while an import is in progress. Its borderline unusable as it is (As I demonstrated in my videos) but during import - no chance. I normally leave it on overnight importing images, but this was a rush job. Rush. Hah.

At this point I was tempted to revert back to 5.7 as , although not exactly a greased sow in terms of performance, it is certainly less cumbersome than CC.

Quick update: I've actually just lost a commercial booking because I was unable to meet the delivery deadlines on the images thanks to Lightroom's sluggish processing. The latest update is actually even *slower* , not that I had previously thought that to be possible.

Due to wait times loading and editing images it's simply not been possible to make adjustments to the volume of images required on 24 hour turnaround. Either I need to drop my standards, or drop Lightroom.

You can do culling quickly by either creating 1-1 previews (let the computer chug along while you do something else) or use a product like FastRawViewer or Photo Mechanic. Even Capture One culls more quickly. As for editing, either switch to Capture One or incorporate Photoshop into your work flow. Be sure to adopt the LR speedup recommendations on Adobe help page and in Victoria Bamptons ebook on the subject.

Another option to speed up editing is to use smart previews. But for commercial work you might need magnification for your editing work.

They rarely publicly announce changes before they're ready for release, but trust me, they do listen and care. Some things aren't quick fixes, which means we don't see progress as quickly as we'd like, but that doesn't mean your pleas are being ignored.

With all due respect, you don't represent Adobe and don't work for them. Until they (Adobe employees) actually partake in the conversation and actually interact with us on a regular basis, its essentially two middle fingers in the air towards their customer base.

The most damaging thing you can do to your customer base is to not communicate with them. Whatever the answer may be. Adobe's silence for those paying month after month for a CC subscription is like a slap in the face.

@ArtI did the cull in Photomechanic, I'm not completely mad :D But trying to then crop, rotate and tone 1,600 images, even with 1:1 previews generated overnight (As I am always forced to do, same day edits? Hah!) it's like working through tar, and is simply too sluggish and too frustrating to hit the targets required.

If it wasn't for the Midi control interface I'd have killed something long ago, and even then I'm tempted to just roll back to 5.7 which, IMO, was the last version with vaguely acceptable performance.

Nope, but unless Adobe changes their policies, I'm as good as you're getting right now. I'd love it if Adobe decided to open up more. All I can say is, as an Adobe Community Professional, I get to work with these guys on a daily basis and while I can't tell you they're working on, I can vouch for the fact they do care. The corporate decision makers, I'm less convinced.

Victoria can you tell us whether they are taking seriously the speed issues in D mode once an image has a few dozen edits? Seems like LR should be editing the image incrementally in memory rather than starting from scratch for every little clone or heal (as it appears currently with a soinning wheel being the norm).
Thanks!

Geoff, I'm not commenting "on behalf of Adobe". My thoughts are my own opinion, just as your comments are your opinion. I can share my experience and perspective, just as you can share yours. I am limited by non-disclosure agreements in the information I can share, and staff are even more limited in what they can say, so I've told you all that I can - that they do care and are listening. Nothing I can say is going to convince you, so I'm bowing out of the conversation to get back to work.

I know, Victoria, that from your "insider" perspective, they do care. I agree that they care but as with all corporations these days, the leading driver is money. What will it take for Adobe to spend the money to really fix the problems? I do not know and I am sure this is a constant internal battle for Adobe between the marketing group, engineering and software group, and the bean counters. Seems like this is the corporate norm these days.

I agree, Geoff, that someone from Adobe should be somewhat more forthcoming about this issue. It has certainly gone on too long without any high-level Adobe executive telling us something - anything. I do not understand what this is about. In my business, I have learned that customers can deal with anything if you tell them the truth up-front - no beating around the bush and no lack of communication. They must know this so while I do not understand their reasoning, there is not much we can do. Other competitive products are simply lacking some of the features we have come to know and love about LR so I for one cannot simply switch today. This, of course, will change over time and perhaps Adobe will fix the issue as well.

One thing that does not help anyone is for us to start sniping at one another. First, it does not help fix the problem. Second, I am not even sure Adobe looks at any of these comments.

So, as Conrad Allen suggested and I agree, let's use this forum for it's intended purpose - trying to find some solutions to the problem. Frankly, for me, I do not care where the solution comes from as long as this gets resolved sooner rather than later.

Yes, I did state it was obvious :) But it perhaps directs investigation toward that part of the pipeline. The UI is still so very very laggy too, so it's not just the RAW rendering, but the UI rendering too that's affected. No other application I use struggles to render its GUI based on window resolution, so there must be something seriously amiss with LR's architecture for this to be the case.

I find this very interesting too. Browsers have no problems scrolling extremely smoothly through a page full of images. Even when I have smart previews *and* standard previews rendered for my images it still has a very hard time performing.

Very different tech is being used, but that should either indicate they need to change their tech, or something is clearly missing/wrong/broken with the current tech

Anyone has comments on the recent update 2015.12? Any improvements of the performance?I can barely work with the LR on my PC now and so tired of waiting and watching the loading message. I have tried constantly rebooting the computer, switching different version of the graphic card driver, and different LR settings, but nothing helps.

Next left me to try: a. change my main monitor to be 1920X1080 instead of the current 4k one;b. give a try of using dng format instead of the original Nikon raw file (my friends don't seem to complain the LR performance and they all convert to dng when importing the photos)c. may have to get back 5.17???

Still crap. Took almost 12 hours to generate 1:1 and smart previews for 1600 images. Fortunately for me and my clients I set it going before I went to bed, meaning I only lost 4 hours of working time the following morning.

General performance still unusable, I have taken to minimising the windows to 1/4 of my monitor size to make quick global edits which improves performance considerably and puts it at what I'd consider a usable level. There is clearly a big issue with the demosaic/display pipeline.

No adjustments happen in realtime, fortunately I can use the MIDI controller to physically set dial and fader locations and then wait for LR to catch up, otherwise I'd have already quit photography and got a job as a professional paint-drying inspector, the Gods know I've had plenty of practice.

I wonder generating 1:1 and smart previews would help. And I have the similar experience that the performance improves when I switch to use lower resolution screen (1080p) vs. my 4K one, or change the display size of the image to be 1/4 of the actual size.

Doesn't help very much. Still painfully slow and it takes hours and hours and hours to generate 1:1 previews. I am now always editing smart previews and it helps only a very small amount. So I can edit 5-10 additional images before it gets so slow that I have to exit and restart. What a major PIA.

Smart Previews cause a 1-2s colour shift delay when navigating between images, presumably as the smart preview loads in. This makes it impossible to move through a set of images comfortably (For me) so I can't use the feature.

Agreed! I thought it would help on first pass speed and then delete them for final processing. As it turns out, this was just another stab in the dark by adobe to try and appease us when it does not really help performance much anyway!

Well, I suppose we now have our answer.New version of LR with "Improved performance" that isn't available on a standalone licence, completing Adobe's Matrix-like assimilation of everyone onto their profit teat.

I assume no bugfixes or performance updates will be released for LR6 so you may as well go and mark this thread as "Closed".

If I thought there was a shit of a chance of getting a refund on my standalone copy of LR6 (That I have been unable to use because of performance issues for the product's entire (and in fact mercifully brief) lifespan) I'd try, but I know how much Adobe care, making such an attempt as abortive as the product itself. I honestly believed Adobe were working to improve the product, otherwise I'd have applied for a refund within 24 hours. I suppose that kind of business practice isn't illegal but it's certainly morally dubious.

As it is I wasted £100 on a product that was unusable, won't get any compensation for the lost investment or the lost time, and must now pay a monthly subscription to use the product that alleged to perform as well as this one bloody should have.

If LR didn't have the almost-realised potential to be an incredible product I wouldn't be so mad - it's simply because the alternative products are so dire that I'm even pissed about this otherwise I'd have jumped ship when I realised LR6 performed as it did. The lack of a standalone licence is the final insult to someone whose income is unpredictable enough to make subscriptions a risk.

Denyer, I have Adobe "Classic" CC now, and I can tell you, they didn't really work to improve the product. It looks a little different, but all the issues we've been talking about are still there as of last night.

It is clear that they really, really, don't care about those of us on this post as none of the items we have discussed have received any attention in this new release - or should I say the new product.

I tried creating a new catalog and importing about 2000 JPG files and then went about the usual practices of reviewing in Library Mode, lots of zooming in and out, and then editing some in Develop Mode. As near as I can tell, the speed and performance is worse than in 2015.12.

I guess they are after a different market that does not include us and are more than willing to see us leave. I totally agree with Denyer that they did a lot of work here but none of it was targeted at solving the issues we all have with speed.

So, now I guess we will need to look at other solutions since Adobe has clearly decided to throw us away in favor of more subscribers that accept the poor performance or have so few images that putting them on the web on their servers will work out.

This is just the first wave of performance updates. Performance is now the Classic team's main focus. There's no question you're seeing major issues, but they couldn't find the cause and solution for your issue in time for this deadline. They're still working on it though.

While it was no small feat to carve out the foundation of making these performance gains, we know we still have a lot of work ahead. . For instance, we are working to optimize the performance of higher powered processing systems and higher resolution monitors.

That they couldn't find the cause and solution for this specific issue in time for the Adobe Max conference deadline, you'll have to trust me (other than the obvious that it's not fixed!)

In Aperture, presets were available AND current metadata was previewed in an editable text box. You could edit a preset or just directly type in your desired settings, and you had a preview during import.

In LR, you MUST use a preset. There is no preview of metadata that will be used, so you have to click the popup and select Edit Presets to even see what you are going to apply.

When you click Edit Presets, instead of opening the current preset, you get a new blank Custom preset. You have to click again to show the current preset. Then you can edit it.

When you click Done, it isn't saved, a box pops up and you have to click again to save it (instead of just putting standard Save/Don't Save/Cancel buttons in the Edit dialog.)

Then the Metadata popup switches to None- even though you had a preset selected, and just edited that preset! So you have to click AGAIN to switch back to the preset you want to use.

This is stupid, terrible UI design, slow, and aggravating. Why not do it the way Apple did and have an editable preview field for metadata?

Lightroom is littered with examples like this of lousy design that makes it harder and more confusing to use and that slow down the user. If you are going to address performance issues, maybe fix some of these problems?

I'm not sure how "fix usability issues" is a feature request? This should have been figured out when the feature was originally designed.

But yeah, I could write a book. I came to LR from Aperture and am still disappointed and aggravated by how poor the design and UI are in comparison. I use Adobe products daily on both Mac and Windows so its not just a platform issue, either.

I am sure others will agree that your input to the forum are especially valuable and appreciated. Sometimes, however, your comments seem "corporate" and "hollow" regarding Adobe and their actions and policies. I am aware that you are a huge supporter of Adobe's products and provide a great source of support on their behalf.

On the other hand, it may not seem evident but WE are all huge fans and supporters of Adobe and Lightroom - just like you! When I say we, I am referring to the power users and professional users of the products. WE are supporters but have essentially been abandoned by Adobe in exchange for a crazy new version which clearly took huge amounts of time and effort by the programming team. Great! However, if they had invested the same amount of programmer's time and effort on solving the blatantly poor performance, that would have made a bigger impact at "Adobe Max".

They did not have time to find find the problem. I and the rest of us have been complaining about this for more than one year with absolutely no real attempts by Adobe to address the issue.

We are not playing around with LR but using to support our livelihood and frankly it has been seriously affecting my income and my time for more than one year. I am losing patience with their blatant disregard.

I can understand how it can seem like I'm defending them. I guess I just have a slightly different perspective on things, because I see what goes on behind the scenes, as well as from the user's point of view. So apologies if it comes over that way. Believe me, I complain vigorously behind closed doors at times! ;)

And yes, I completely understand that your tools not working has a massive impact on your trade. To be honest, I'm amazed you've been as patient as you have been. That's immensely frustrating, especially when other people are seeing their problems improved.

Victoria,I own and have recommended your LR eBooks to countless people. I respect you, your expertise, and your approach toward people. You of all people have the pulse of the LR users. If Adobe didn't listen to your objections, they are not likely to listen to ours. I've been using LR, and paying for upgrades,since Version 1. I'm highly dependent on it's ability to use plugins and to publish to services. The very moment one of the competitors offers something similar - I'm gone.

avpman, I'm in the same boat. I've pretty much got a google-alert set for Capture One and the minute they come up with camera profiles and let me import (or easily recreate) my presets, I'm going to spend that $300 and never look back.

Thanks Victoria. I am sorry if it seems like I am upset with you because I am not. What I am is extremely frustrated with Adobe's lack of attention to us!

Currently, I teach classes in Lightroom to over 50 people each year and recommend it to over 100 photographers every year. I also am using it since version 1 and love the progress they have made. I just want it to work for me and all my students as well as the rest of the power and professional users.

Hopefully, they will eventually hear our begging and fix it. So far, it seems as if they have ignored us in favor of more and more and more new features.

avpman & Matthew, seems perfectly reasonable. Just no point jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire before there's a good alternative. Never know, Adobe might surprise you.

Joel, don't worry, I don't take it personally. I'd be just as frustrated. I personally forwarded this thread to the product manager a few weeks ago to make sure he was aware. Whether they'll manage to figure out what's causing the issue, I can't promise, but we will all still keeping fighting.

I'm primarily pissed because I paid for the standalone version (I cannot abide subscriptions, I just do not think it's a valid model for me) and it was unusable from day 1.

I go back to using 5.7 and start this thread and do what I can to try and get Adobe to fix the issues.

Instead of fixing the product I have paid for, they put the performance improvements into a new subscription only product. Imagine my joy.

As far as I'm concerned Adobe owe me for the product I purchased and was then unable to use due to it not being fit for purpose. The damage they've done to my trust in them I don't think can be so easily repaired. Imagine the scenario where a future release of LR CC comes out that causes similar issues (or PS for that matter, I'm still on CS6). Sure, sure, rollback they say. So now you're paying a monthly subscription for software that will *never* by design receive fixes, because you're forced into a parked branch because of some decision made by a company that doesn't appear to really give too much of a piss what the userbase is up to.

It all stinks. The day C1 get their act together regarding their metadata, I'm done. Until then I can use 5.7 so long as I don't upgrade my camera.

Victoria, Thanks for doing what you can to get our issues noticed. It sort of feels like we all got together to shout into the darkness, so knowing that someone at Adobe has at least seen the issue is something.

As you might imagine, I have been thinking about this and stressing over it for quite some time. Over one year ago, I suggested they configure a machine with my exact specs including the Graphics Board I am using and try it out. Then, they will see what I am talking about. The last time I spoke to Simon, they did not have one of the graphics boards that I am using (NVidia Tital GTX 12 Gig).

So, what exactly are they doing to try to fix this? I know they won't say but prior to what I do today, I owned a Computer Software & Networking company in Long Island for 30+ years and I was not only the Systems Analyst but I was the lead developer. When one of my customers had a serious issue we could not reproduce, we made suggestions. When several customers experienced the same or similar issues, we always created the exact same environment - hardware, software, network, data, etc. and worked to recreate it so we could address it.

Perhaps they have done this but then tell us something! Somehow, I am not sure this is their primary focus. It seems like marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, and then performance is their priority list. As long as dozens more sign up, they can afford to lose those of us that are simply fed up and I am sure their bean counters see this as normal attrition.

As someone else said on a different forum, you know you are in trouble when your competition uses the new release as a solid reason to switch to their platform. You really know when people are switching. Adobe is big! Perhaps too big to see the value in working to preserve their long time customer base by addressing serious issues.

It is really sad because Adobe could have it all and blow away their competition. However, short sighted marketing efforts on their part won't allow them too. Perhaps the Subscription Based Model for LR is in trouble and this is their way to try and force people to get on board. I hear a big backfire in the distance.

I have been playing around with ON1 RAW 2018 as a test since Lightroom is so slow. While there are many features in LR that ON1 does not have, I must tell you that their non-destructive RAW editing is amazingly fast.

I am testing this on the same computer that runs LR so poorly it is essentially unusable. The ON1 software runs fast, uses my GPU efficiently, and does not slow down as I do more.

It seems to me that their programming team knows something that Adobe's team either does not know or has ignored this issue in favor of more features, more features, new collect money model, more subscribers, etc., etc., etc.

Having attempted to use LRCC this afternoon for some of last night's edits I can confirm it is actually WORSE than LR6.

I honestly did not think this was humanly possible.

When switching between images in the develop module it looks like you're ready to work, but you're not. You're just being lied to. Switch images and activate crop tool - I have to wait 12-15s before it becomes responsive.

I will not be paying for this shite until someone can confirm that it actually runs like an application from 2017 running on monster hardware, and not like some C64 paint package. Utterly unimpressed, and I've narrowly avoided missing another deadline as a result.

UPDATE:Just timed it - switching images in the develop module I have to wait 27 seconds before the crop tool is responsive.

This is with pre-generated 1:1 and smart previews, and also tested with smart previews deleted.

We can write and write and write and it makes no difference. We (certainly me) have been screaming about performance for more than one year and what did Adobe do? They created a totally new cloud based version and totally ignored the performance issues.

They simply DO NOT CARE!!!!! All I ever hear is from Simon Chen and every comment from him is "The team are working on it". Really, they are working on it for more than one year? When did they have time to create the entire new version if they were really working on the performance issue?

The sad truth is they must not really have been working on it as I started screaming and demoing the performance issue more than a full year ago and look where we are - nowhere!!!!

So I have been using Lightroom Classic CC for a couple of days and the results are that it is faster. From 10% to 50% in some examples. They are using way more the video graphic card if you have check this option in performance, and that is pretty usefull in my workflow.

I truly do not see a long term home for me with these products. I don't care about PS as I rarely use it. I need to find a replacement for LR though. It's time to seriously start developing a transition strategy.

I would like to use a previously purchased LR perpetual license to keep my existing work available while I develop a new workflow. Does anyone know if it is possible to open a CC catalog in a previous version?

I am playing around with Capture One and ON1 RAW 2018. So far, I am liking Capture one PRO and think it may be my salvation.

As a side note, both of these applications have really fast performance on my system where Lightroom is a dog (not a greyhound, more like a dachshund).

Capture One is very similar to Lightroom with a different layout and what seems to be a more detailed and robust editing suite for RAW images. More important, it is really fast with no slowdown after a bunch of edits.

You should try it. I have a feeling that lots of us will be making the switch soon and I am sure Adobe doesn't care and will be happy to see us go. Sad really, because I have been a loyal supporter of Adobe since Photoshop 3 (not CS3, just 3) and Lightroom since Version 1. I hate to make the switch but as they have totally abandoned me for more than one year, it is clear they would rather see me go.

Since close to 30 students of mine every year sign up for the cloud as they take my classes, they will lose many of them as well and many new potential customers when I begin recommending Capture One.

I don't know if this breaks any rules, hopefully not, but I just started a FB group where we and other users can share thoughts/experiences about finding LR replacements. If you're interested, it's called Former LR Users.Best,AE

Will Anyone at Adobe Ever break the Cone of Silence? Many of us have been begging for help and begging to help find and address the serious performance issues we are experiencing.

Simon, you keep telling us "the team are working on it" and I believe you. I am just not sure what "it" is that they are working on. Clearly it has not been the performance issue. I am waiting more than one year and perhaps everyone on the "team" were too busy inventing the new cloud based product to spend any effort on the existing performance issues. Seems to me that has been quite unfair considering I pay every month for software with a major issue you have essentially ignored for more than 12 months.

Jeff, you have remained totally silent on the issue. Please tell us to go away, tell us how to fix it, tell us when we can expect some help, but please tell us something!

Both of you saw the issue while connected to my PC over one year ago and still no help and no discussion. At the PC Expo in NYC last week, I spoke to someone from Adobe that seemed quite happy when I said that I was being forced to go to Capture One and he said good if that solves my issue. Well, besides that not being a great answer, I may need to do just that. Perhaps, if those of us with this major issue went away, Adobe would be much closer to cancelling the desktop version in lieu of the new cloud based scenario that none of us could use anyway due to the lack of features and sheer volume of photos we process daily or weekly.

Many of us with strong IT backgrounds have offered to help run test products to determine the source of the issue with no response from Adobe. We have posted information trying to show how LR runs so poorly on our systems while other products seem to race along without any slowdown at all. Some of us have been forced to go back to the prior 2015.12 version so we can get our work done albeit with a restart of LR after every 30 or so images.

I am quite sure none of us want to leave Adobe and none of us want to use other products but we need your help. So, here I am begging openly for some kind of help in solving this issue.

Most of us with the problem are using high-end PC's. I have Windows 10 on a PC with a 3.3Ghz 12-core processor, 64Mb 2400 speed RAM, NVidia GTX Titan Graphics with 12Gb Dedicated VRam, SSD drives and I can tell you that everything on my PC is lightning fast (Including Capture One and ON1 RAW 2018) except for Lightroom.

Some of us (including me) teach comprehensive classes in both Lightroom and Photoshop and get from 30-100 students per year to enroll in the Lightroom CC (now Classic) system. Please help me continue supporting Adobe and referring students to the cloud based systems.

I am aware that my CC monthly payment means nothing to Adobe and if I went away the company would never miss it. I am aware that I am a thorn in your side for constantly complaining about performance. I am aware that the company line is that Lightroom Classic is much faster than previous versions. Well, I have yet to talk to any of my colleagues, friends, students, or anyone for that matter that thinks the new program is faster. In fact, even several of my students using MAC OS feel that Classic is slower than the prior version. Okay, I am sure some see an improvement in performance but I am not sure who they are. No matter, every day I read forum comments from many of you longest loyal customers begging for help to solve the performance issue.

So, Adobe, Jeff, Simon: I and others stand before you begging for some relief. Our businesses are suffering as we cannot process our work. Our lives are being adversely affected as we have no time left after spending three or four times as long as before working on our daily shoot images.

Please do not force us to move away from Adobe. Many of us have been loyal supporters for dozens of years. Your company was built on our continued loyalty, software purchases, and upgrades. We really want to stay loyal. We really want to continue to recommend Adobe products to our colleagues, friends, and students. We want Adobe to continue to be the leading force in the imaging business. To do all of this, WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

Please, please, please help us. Let us help you. We will do anything you ask of us (within reason and our busy schedules) to identify and correct this issue. I am sure you have read some of my comments on other forum threads and the times I report are real!

Joel, I see you are much more invested in Adobe than I am. Lightroom became my softrware of choice in 2010. I purchased 2 versions of CS and 3 versions of LR before moving to CC, so I have spent ~$2,000.

Looking at the other options, I see there are some that are viable (for me). I suspect they will get better quickly as much of the competition is working hard to entice folks to leave Adobe.

All of my time and effort at this point is focused on saving my edits into common file formats and deciding which program(s) to move to.

Best of luck trying to prod the cash-generating monster into doing what's right for its customers. They know what's best for us, just ask them.

I am confused by these last two comments because I've heard lots of reports that LR "Classic" is indeed faster than prior recent versions. Perhaps it's not faster on certain Windows configurations? (I run Mac and have not upgraded yet due to time constraints.)

Art - it's a LOT faster in certain use cases - the Library view is indeed vastly superior and is in fact fast enough now to use for culling. It's not PhotoMechanic fast, but it's fast enough to consider using a single tool again (Praise be!).

There are however serious issues with the Develop module, including colour shifts on load, and insane lag outs when enabling certain tools (The crop tool is the most obvious culprit, which case take between 30 and 40 seconds to initialise for me).

I have no doubt they're finally on the right track, but the anger that myself and others have over being quite frankly swindled on LR6 Standalone (Or in fact 2 years of unusable subscription) is palpable and justified. I see it like a garage mechanic promising to fix the car you've bought and paid for, and after fobbing you off for 2 years they finally tell you they've fixed the car - you simply need to buy a new one and all the problem sill go away!

I have made the decision to cancel my sub and revert to LR6 while/until I move to other tools.

I hope everyone realizes this is your LAST chance as it were to keep your catalog in tact and use LR perpetual. If you upgrade to Classic, your catalog will no longer be compatible with LR6 (the last ever perpetual lic). So you'll be stuck as a subscriber, or start over with an old copy of your catalog(s).

I had previosly purchased LR3,4 and 5. I went online to look for a copy of 6 and was pleasantly surprised that I could still upgrade to 6 through Adobe. I doubt that option will remain for long, so if you are not happy with the CC and Classic moves, it's now or maybe never.

I'll follow the forums and leave the option open to move back to Adobe in the future.

Unfortunately, Adobe doesn't care! Actually, on their tote board the number of complainers just went down by one.

Anthony, I support your decision and I am just days away from following you. I have been using Capture One trial and it is fairly good. A little more expensive but it is lightning fast and simply works! I also pre-ordered the new Windows version of Luminar scheduled for delivery on 11-15 and it is reasonably priced (dirt cheap), NOT a subscription, and looks really powerful - have to wait and see.

I think many more of us will do the same. Good luck and keep us posted on your search and exploration of other software.

But what I really find quite dramatic is to see people begging corporations - which have been created with their support - because they cannot adapt to change. The change which is driven in the first place by that same entities. Joel, please stop begging and find alternatives. There are a lot out there, becoming more and more robust every day.

Your experience is more important than the tool you're using, I'm sure you know that.

There are a lot of people who don't have the time or opportunity to look around for an alternative and to re-learn an entire workflow. If you're a working photographer who gets by based on turn-time and pushing lots of smaller jobs out the door, adding extra time and inconvenience to the process can make or break your livelihood.

I'm fortunate enough to just make money on the side of my day job, so I can take the extra time to deal with the inconvenience of Lightroom, or to spend the extra time trying to replicate my look and output process on another product, but there are some people out there who don't have that.

You're right and I do understand 100%. Today I had a client asked me(how's the photos coming along?). I am like Joel that does it for my livelihood and do require a program, that is part of my process to be as capable as I am but unfortunately, I too, take a lot longer than I should to produce an end result which is no fault of my own.

Well Matthew, then those people will have to endure until the pressure or discomfort of being at the mercy of someone else is becoming too much than the trouble of switching and eventually realize there are other solutions.

Aeris, this ignores the entire "don't have time or opportunity" part of my comment, and even if it didn't, it's a ridiculous way for a professional company to treat their customers. "you'll just have to endure"? really?

Matthew, people are free to do as they please. Maybe some are willing to sacrifice time from other tasks and use it to make the change. Time is a resource, you invest it. And it could pay-off in the long run or not. Yes, with Adobe's track of update releases I view it as an endurance challenge - can you make it until (hopefully) the fix is coming?

Joel is obviosly heavily invested in Adobe. I don't blame him a bit for trying everything he can to get back to where he was; using a functional product.As for me, I've moved on. I'm building a new workflow with other products an I'm looking forward to canceling my sub.

It's like a marriage - you want it to work. It doesn't but you want it to and you keep trying, then there's that point where you shout(whether in your head or out loud) "lets make it work"!!! There are always alternatives but wouldn't it be great if you can just get along with the one that you already have, and love?!? So, you make a final plea... I feel your pain, Joel

I don't think it's like a marriage, I think it's like having your car break down when you're on your way to a job interview, and the mechanic comes and tells you it's working just fine. Yeah, you can go to a dealership and buy a new car (if you can afford it) but you're still missing your interview.

I don't hang out with Lightroom because we're good friends, or because we're in love. It's a tool, and it has stopped working. There are other tools, but they don't work as well for what I need right now as Lightroom as of about two years ago.

Thanks to all of you for your comments. Just so you are aware, I am working with several alternatives (Capture 1, ON1 RAW 2018, DXO, and will look into Luminar).

My issue is that since 2009, I have been teaching courses in LR and PS to literally hundreds of semi-pro and pro photographers. Many of them (almost all) asked me to recommend software and I have recommended LR and then PS for a few things LR is not good at, making the Photographers Cloud the best solution financially for them.

Now, I can change fairly easily (Capture One is scarily similar to LR but blazing fast) but if I change, many if not all of my former and future students will change as well and that will be difficult at best for them. I really do not want to force this change on them and that is why I am trying anything I can think of to get Adobe to wake up and do something.

Actually, I checked my email and forum history and I complained to Jeff Tranberry and Simon Chen starting in July 2016 and have been suffering the slowdown issue since then. Yes, I am at the end of my patience and have been promised an update to the situation early next week. Depending upon what I hear, I will be cancelling my Adobe Subscription as well.

I evaluated CaptureOne but, despite the many positive sides like the speed for culling and the speed for zooming and the over all speed the application has on the same hardware (6 core i7980 and 24 GB RAM on SSD) compared to LR Classic I still don't want to let Photoshop go. Plus I need Dreamweaver and every now and then AE and Premiere plus Acrobat PRO.

Besides, I think I didn't mention it, that C1 is lightning fast compared to LR on the same hardware, I did also like the levels adjustment UI, the layering of local adjustments and that the UI can be customized i.e. I can drag the panels onto any of my 3 monitors. The latter is something Adobe has to look into imho. And yeah, speed. Did I mention speed?

But, all that said, I am accustomed to the many tools Adobe offers and the inter connectivity and thereby I am in a lock-down concerning leaving CC behind. As much as I'd like to. Foremost because it has become rather tedious to get an quality answer on anything from Adobe.

All in all, this excursion into C1, Affinity Photo BlueGriffon etc.
has shown me that the competition is aware of the weaknesses of the
giant!

Adobe has their work cut out, that's for sure. And I do hope that they get it and step up their game besides new features and breaking promises...

The day will come where Lightroom Classic will be abandoned. You can quote me on this if you like. And yeah, it says somewhere that the CC subscription can be cancelled anytime...

I have a GeForce 970GTX, and two monitors, a 2k screen (primary) and a 1080p screen (Secondary). I use LR ONLY on the primary monitor.

This morning, for reasons unknown to me, I decided to try the PC with only the primary monitor connected to the 970, and attached the secondary monitor to the PC via the onboard graphics adapter (Some poorhouse Intel thing).

Nothing else changed with the workflow, but all of a sudden I'm seeing a huge increase in performance.

It could be planetary alignment, so I'll report back in a few days to be sure.

I have the same problem and been suffered for over a year as most of the people here. Recently I saw some improvements after upgraded to the latest version of classic LR. Navigating on both Library and Development mode are faster and bearable now. Even though i haven't done a lot of processing work lately, I can tell the performance is improved. Besides the changes of LR (I am sure something has been done towards the performance problem), I tried these three things that I believe helped. 1. I switched to use a old USB mouse instead of a wireless one (it doe not have any problem with other programs on my computer though); 2. I make sure to close all other programs including browsers (I think Chrome uses a lot of resources under the hood though it is more stable and reliable than IE); 3. I installed a second SSD and put all imported photos and LR category there.

I find it sickening that those of us who have the perpetual version have had to put up with these problems for two years now, and the only way to get (promised) relief is to be forced to move to the CC Classic version; which still appears to have it's own set of problems. The decent thing for Adobe to do is at least bring the (now defunct) perpetual version up to speed and leave us with a highly functioning product instead of a crippled, poor performing product full of bugs. Of course, I would expect to pay for an upgrade to a fully functioning product. What say you Adobe?

I guess I miss this post... I was too soon to say that I finally saw some light (my previous post two weeks ago). The very latest update I did recently brought me back to the ultimate slowness again!!! I barely could work for the last few days. And more, besides the slow performance, all navigation among the panels, two screens are totally messed up!!! I CANNOT even export multiple selected photos from the main panel.